


Summer in the City

by SallyAutomatic



Category: Girls (TV)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:15:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25952032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SallyAutomatic/pseuds/SallyAutomatic
Summary: Clara takes a summer teaching job in New York City. Her high school friend Hannah sets her up with her ex-boyfriend Adam, who has an extra room.
Relationships: Adam Sackler/Original Female Character(s)





	Summer in the City

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a slow burn with focus on romance and the developing relationship between Clara and Adam, so the plot won't be very deep in other aspects. I think there will be about 12 chapters in total.
> 
> English is not my first language, so please forgive any mistakes or weird sentences.
> 
> Feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated!

“WHAT?”

Clara jumped back as the door she’d been knocking on for about 5 minutes suddenly opened and crashed against the inside wall with a bang. The door was replaced with a tall, half-naked man, covered in saw dust and dirt, his face hidden underneath protective goggles. Clara looked at the electrical saw in his hand apprehensively. So this was Adam Sackler. Major serial killer vibes.

“Hey, I’m Clara? I’m Hannah’s high school friend?”

“Shit! Yeah. I forgot you were coming today. Uh.. come in, I guess.”

He pulled the goggles up from his face and stepped back, letting her enter the apartment before him. The place was a mess. The furniture was heaped in one corner of the living room, and everything was covered in sawdust. Blocks of wood were piled precariously high everywhere. The room was dominated by a giant structure in wood and iron standing in the middle of the space. How on earth did Hannah think this was an appropriate place for you to stay for the summer?

“So uh.. do you want something to drink? To eat?” Adam moved around the room, picking up random pieces of wood and holding them against the monstrosity he was creating. “Your room’s over there, by the way,” he pointed over his shoulder to a door on the far right, “There’s a bed and a dresser that the guy who lived there before you left behind, but not much else. Bathroom’s on the other side.” He pulled the goggles back over his face. “Thanks. What is.. that?” Clara asked, pointing at the wood structure. “Art,” Adam answered vaguely, picking up the saw and flicking the switch. The deafening noise of the machine made any further conversation impossible, so Clara picked up her bags and moved to the room he had pointed out.

She dropped her bags on the floor unceremoniously and fished her cell phone out of her back pocket. Hannah picked up after the first ring. “Hi, Clara! How’s New York? How’s Adam? Why is there so much noise around you?” “What do you mean, how’s Adam?! You set me up to live with this… this… freak! For three months! He answered the door waving a saw around, Hannah!” Clara shouted, trying to make herself heard, “He’s making very loud art in his.. our living room!” Clara heard Hannah laugh, “Yeah.. that’s Adam, I guess. It’ll be fine, I’m sure. Oh my god, did I tell you about…” Clara sighed as she heard Hannah go off on a tangent about one of her students. She loved her friend but damn that girl was self-involved. “Hey Hannah, I’ll call you back later, okay? I need to unpack.”

Clara looked around the room. It was spacious and had a large window, but the walls were covered in peeling paint and the bed, although king sized, looked like it might fall apart as soon as she sat down. At least it was clean compared to the rest of the apartment. She would have to do some shopping, though. Some pillows to make the bed more cosy, a bedside lamp.. But she would also need a desk and a chair, since there was no way she could focus on work in the chaos that was her new living room. She made a mental note to add noise cancelling headphones to her shopping list.

After emptying her suitcases into the dresser and carrying her toiletries to the bathroom – also cleaner than expected, luckily, Clara decided to head out for some essentials. She wanted to be prepared for her first day on the job tomorrow, so she needed to pick up some pens and pencils, some paper, maybe she’d swing by the bookstore for some inspiration for classes. She took the teaching job at the summer school because it would be an opportunity to spend three months in New York City and because it would look good on her resumé, but even though she knew she was definitely qualified for the job, she knew there would be a huge contrast between teaching at what was considered a school for underprivileged students and her cosy teaching job upstate. She couldn’t help feeling anxious.

Clara grabbed her bag and headed out the door. “Hey you!” she heard Adam yell before the door closed. Clara considered if she should just keep on walking, but hey, she would have to live with the guy for the next three months. Might as well try to be friendly. “What’s up?” she asked as she went back inside. Adam was leaning against his workbench, goggles on top of his head. He wiped the sweat of his face and chest with a towel, covering both himself and the towel in dirty streaks of dust. “What do you think?” he asked, waving over at his art piece. Clara took a moment and watched the structure, her head cocked to the side. All she saw were pieces of wood, attached with metal rods in what seemed a completely random construction. “Uh.. I don’t know much about art, you know. I don’t know. What does it mean?” She didn’t want to insult her roommate, but there really wasn’t much to say and she really didn’t know much about art.

“It doesn’t have to _mean_ anything. Can’t you just look at it and feel it? Like, don’t you ever go in to a museum and _absorb_ the art? I hate it when people are like ‘Oh yeah, I took an art class in college, look at me go on about the _claire obscure_ in this painting’ while they are just not fucking _seeing_ it, you know? I refuse to add this artificial layer of deeper meaning to my art, that doesn’t make it useless, right?” Adam looked at her sceptically, one eyebrow raised. Clara looked down at her sneakers. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult your work or anything…” “Ha!” Adam laughed, a short staccato and joyless sound, “You didn’t insult my work. You just didn’t answer my question. I want your honest opinion. What do you feel when you look at it?” Clara felt his eyes bore into the side of her head while she kept hers firmly on a wooden block in the middle of the piece. She felt flustered. How could she feel anything, looking at the random arrangement of what she assumed was scrap wood he picked up around the city? “I guess it kind of shows how you’re trying to make something out of things left behind by other people, maybe? Like, things they thought were useless…” she tried. Adam slammed his hand down on the bench. ‘NO! Don’t tell me what you think it _means_!” Clara eyes snapped to Adam’s face and she saw annoyance clouding his features. Why was this guy so intense? Feeling very uncomfortable, Clara muttered, “Look, I have to go. Later.” She shimmied past the art piece and out of the door. When she reached the top of the stairs, she heard the saw whirring into action. 

It was going to be a long summer.


End file.
